Marquette's Man On The Spot

January 11, 2000|By Neil Milbert, Tribune Staff Writer.

MILWAUKEE — Some of the biggest names in basketball coaching have spent time at Marquette.

Tex Winter, the guru who gave the game the triangle offense, put his imprint on the program from 1951-53. Ed Hickey, who made the fast break into a fine art, was here from 1958-64. Utah's Rick Majerus began his head coaching career at Marquette from 1983-86. And it was here that Northwestern's Kevin O'Neill made his first appearance in the national limelight from 1989-94.

But since Al McGuire retired in 1977, every Marquette coach has had to deal with the legacy of McGuire, who won the national championship in his final game.

Glued in front of his TV set on that night of March 28, 1977--when Marquette defeated North Carolina in Atlanta--was an 11-year-old boy in Mt. Pleasant, Mich.

Twenty-three years later, that boy--named Tom Crean--has grown up to become Marquette's new basketball coach.

For what it's worth, the 8-5 record that Crean is taking into Wednesday night's game at DePaul is better than McGuire's 6-7 at this point. But the early schedule that Marquette then played as an independent was tougher than the one Crean's team has used to prepare for Conference USA.

Like McGuire then, Crean now is in quest of his first victory on the road; he's 0-5 after incurring a 67-48 beating Saturday from Cincinnati. That loss against the nation's top-ranked team ended a three-game winning steak climaxed by a rout of St. Louis in the Conference USA opener.

Tom Izzo, under whom Crean served at Michigan State, and O'Neill were the best men when Crean married quarterback Jim Harbaugh's sister, Joani. Both told him to seek the Marquette job.

"Milwaukee and Marquette are an ideal spot for Tom," Izzo said.

"Marquette has great tradition and he has the ability to make Marquette a force to be reckoned with.

"He was an assistant who thought like a head coach. He's also one of my best friends. I coached the team but in game situations and preparation, Tom had enormous suggestive power."

Izzo is aware of what Crean is up against for the rest of the season: "In the Big Ten we're probably better from top to bottom, but Conference USA has teams every bit as good as Big Ten teams."

Crean inherited four starters and six lettermen from the team that got Mike Deane fired by compiling records of 14-15 overall and 11-5 in the conference. The roster includes three guards from Illinois--junior Brian Wardle from Hinsdale Central, senior John Cliff from Decatur MacArthur and sophomore Cordell Henry, who was a teammate of DePaul All-American Quentin Richardson on Young's 1998 Class AA state champs.

The transition to the up-tempo Michigan State style that Crean favors is a work in progress. "Every program I've been a part of was built with defense and rebounding," he says. "With that everything else comes. It's just going to take some time."

DePaul coach Pat Kennedy says that eventually Crean can remake the Marquette rivalry into what it was in the heyday of McGuire and Ray Meyer.

"I think he will do a sensational job," Kennedy said. "He has a chance to take them to the next level."

In Crean's opinion, that entails competing for the cream of the Chicago area high school crop.

"We have an inside-out theory of recruiting," he explains. "First and foremost, we want to sign top players from Wisconsin and the Chicago area.

"I think there's enough talent in the state of Illinois, not only for Illinois and DePaul and Northwestern but certainly Marquette as well.

"As an assistant under Tom and under Ralph Willard at Western Kentucky, I had to try figure out what my head coach wanted.

"Now I have to figure out what I want."

Crean doesn't have to figure out what Marquette fanatics want. Another coach who did what Al McGuire did will suffice.